You can be forgiven for a sense of deja vu. With the end of the NFL’s regular season comes the return of the league’s most tiresome soap opera: what does Aaron Rodgers want to do?
After two years of will-he-won’t-he – will he force a trade away from the Green Bay Packers? Will he retire? – Rodgers shut down all speculation last offseason when he signed a three-year, fully guaranteed, $150m contract, making him the most expensive quarterback in the league and, it was assumed, a Packer for life.
Not so fast. Rodgers spent his final seconds at Lambeau Field after the Packers’ disappointing 20-16 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday doing what he does best: Sending cryptic messages.
Rodgers walked down the tunnel arm in arm with Randall Cobb, moving aside a videographer in order to absorb the moment with his pal. He declined to swap jerseys with Jameson Williams, telling the Lions receiver: “I’m gonna hold on to this one.” It doesn’t take Benoit Blanc to figure out Rodgers was hinting, again, at retirement.
It has become an annual tradition at this point: The Packers limping out of the playoff race with a listless performance. The quarterback played small in the biggest spots. The quarterback indicating he wants out – whether that’s from Green Bay or the NFL entirely. The Packers throwing cash and hosannas and pleas at the quarterback’s feet; the quarterback aw-shucking his way back to the building. What were you all worried about? I never thought about leaving. Cryptic Instagram posts? Are you kiddin’ me? Can’t a global star declare he’s contemplating moving on in peace?
Rodgers pushed things a little further this time. He said post-game that it could be time to step away, but that he remains “unsure”. Asked for a timeline, Rodgers said that he was, “not going to hold the franchise hostage”, meaning a decision could come as soon as this week after he completes his annual exit interview with the team.
It’s bumpy ground for the player and the team. Rodgers retiring would tank the Packers’ cap sheet in the short-term – and given the structure of the contract he moped his way to last season, a trade would make things just as squirrely. If Rodgers plays next year, he will account for $31.6m on the Packers cap. If he’s traded or he retires, that figure jumps to $40.3m in dead money.
Complicating matters for Green Bay: Rodgers’ deal gets progressively worse if he opts to return and then decides to retire after next season. The $40m they’d absorb in dead money next season would be chump change compared with the $68m that would be on the books if he retired after next season or the $77m (!) in dead money if he walked away after 2024. It’s a now-or-never thing for the Packers – and Rodgers knows that.
Rodgers has 59.5 million reasons to play football next year. And $59.5m sounds like an awful lot of money to leave on the table until you consider the booming sports broadcasting market or that Spotify would hand Rodgers a slice of the moon to host “Aaron Rodgers: I’m Just Asking” on their service.
If Tom Brady was able to command a $37m annual salary from Fox, what could Rodgers pull in from Amazon or NBC or FanDuel? Late in the season, when hits from September and October continue to nag and throb in December and January, earning less but not having to absorb physical punishment may seem like the sensible option.
At 39, after another disappointing season, with plenty of non-playing options on the table, it must be tempting for Rodgers to walk away. Does he really want to go back through the grind of a season with a talented yet incomplete roster, lacking the tools (or organization) to make splashy upgrades this offseason, putting his body and mind through the challenge of a 20-odd week season, all to fall at an early hurdle?
There’s a chance Green Bay will call Rodgers’ bluff this time around. The front office may even be eager to give Jordan Love a shot before his rookie contract expires.
Last year, the team underwent the painstaking work of convincing Rodgers to return on a bumper contract. They talked him down from the anger he felt after they drafted his replacement and traded away his best receiver, Davante Adams. They agreed to bring his old quarterback coach in from the cold. And they did so with knowledge they were locking down the back-to-back MVP. Securing Rodgers for three more years (at least) made sense. He remained a top-five passer, at worst. And his game had all the hallmarks of one that would age gracefully.
A year on, the calculus is different. Rodgers struggled throughout the season, in part because of roster limitations and in part because of his own decline. Elements of his game that used to form the centerpiece of the Packers’ offense have drifted away.
Rodgers has lost zip and accuracy on his fastball. He finished 30th among eligible quarterbacks in adjusted completion percentage on throws of 20 yards or more. In a category he used to dominate, he now sits behind Mac Jones, Jacoby Brissett, and Jimmy Garoppolo, a trio of quarterbacks hardly known for gunning.
And he cut a frustrated figure throughout the season. The offense looked out of sync. Rodgers couldn’t muster any chemistry with his new receivers. We hadn’t seen as much pouting, smoldering, or passive-aggressive glares since the nadir of the Mike McCarthy days.
By the time the Packers were able to string any sort of run together, it owed as much to an opportunistic defense, the run-game, and the elevation of a young receiver as the four-time MVP.
Rodgers has long been a one-man avalanche. He dragged bad Packers teams to the playoffs. But he’s not that player anymore. That’s left him with a choice: to redefine his game or to walk away accepting that he can no longer conjure magic as consistently as he approaches 40.
Rodgers could decide to adjust. Or he could pin the blame for his decline on the Packers and the lack of a supporting cast.
And if Rodgers is not done with football but just done with the Packers? There will be no shortage of suitors.
Reuniting with Adams in Vegas makes sense. But would the self-styled free-thinker want to work alongside the prickly, my-way-or-no-way Josh McDaniels?
Heading back to California to team up with Kyle Shanahan at the San Francisco 49ers makes sense, too. Why continue to chug along with a collection of young, talented players when you could walk into a room with George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, and the most dynamic offensive core in the league?
Or how about teaming up with Bill Belichick in New England? Or joining Sean McVay in LA? Or becoming the darling of New York by helping to elevate a gifted Jets core into a legitimate contender?
The question is whether Rodgers has the drive to overhaul his game, be it with a new team or a new roster in Green Bay. “Do I feel like I have anything left to prove to myself?” Rodgers asked himself rhetorically on Sunday. “Do I want to go back and gear up for another grind? Or is it time? Is it time to step away? Is it time for another voice to be leading this team?”
Only one person can answer those questions. Into another offseason of gossip, innuendo, ayahuasca and introspection we go.